


Sunflowers

by Nellie_McEnt



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Grieving, Other, Sunflowers, charcter death but a canon one, including in the summary sort of, short-ish, spoilers for A1Ch15 and on, thanks windy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 05:05:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18218591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nellie_McEnt/pseuds/Nellie_McEnt
Summary: Based on a prompt by Windy. Thanks, Windy!Reynir and Tuuri invent a story to help them survive the monotony (and also the fear) of being non-immune on the expedition. After the events of Chapter 15, Reynir is left to cope and rebuild and see if their imaginings can survive.I am terrible at summaries.





	Sunflowers

The mask of silence that had lain over Reynir’s world all day did not so much crack as explode. He and Tuuri had been hovering, bored, in a clearing, and suddenly its grey stillness was filled with bright colors--red blood, tarnished-golden hair, violet eyes, the orange blaze of fire--and the air had come alive with sound. If he had been able to hear himself think over the sudden shouts of _go, go!_ and _drive, fluffy head, drive!_ he might have suspected that this had something to do with Emil.  
“Take this!” Sigrun shoved several thin paper packets into his hand. “Get in the tank!” Reynir fumbled the offering and sprinted for the door, tripping over his own feet.  
“What happened?” Reynir began to ask, but the swarm of small beasts that began to flock outside the cattank just as he closed the door answered his question. “Right. Okay.”  
“We were slightly less careful than usual, but everything turned out awesome anyway,” called Sigrun, handing her contaminated uniform to Mikkel. “What are you still doing out here, Freckles?” she asked. “Get in the front with Tuuri.”  
“And drop those packets!” added Mikkel. Turning to Sigrun, he muttered, “did you give those to him? You know he’s not immune,” and Reynir shuddered involuntarily and dropped the envelopes. They rattled softly as they hit the floor.  
“Right, sorry.” Reynir reached a hand up instinctively to check that his mask was still secure before hurrying to join Tuuri in the drivers’ compartment, closing the door behind him.  
She was wearing an expression that combined panic and intense concentration, and Reynir knew better than to bother her. He sat down quietly in the passenger seat and, after a while, fell asleep.

_Reynir dreamed that a thousand suns rose out of the earth on green stems and stood around him in a blaze of gold and emerald. He smiled and reached up, stroked their rays. Silk. The sky was pale gold, but the stars and moon were out, and the grass was wet with dew. A white bird perched on one of the suns and sang a high, clear melody._

Reynir blinked awake slowly. “Have you ever seen suns grow from the ground, Tuuri?”  
“Sorry?” She turned to him, a bemused smile on her face.  
“I…don’t know why I said that. Maybe it’s a mage thing.”  
“A mage thing? No offense, but I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Lalli mention anything like that. It’s a nice idea, though.”  
“Yeah, I guess it is.”

The next day was grey and quiet again. After a period of listless silence, Tuuri held up a small notebook. “Do you want to draw?”  
Reynir turned to her in puzzlement. “Draw? Draw what?”  
“Why don’t you draw your dream? The one with the suns from the other night?”  
Reynir thought about this for a moment. “I don’t remember it.”  
“Well...then I’ll draw what you said when you woke up.” She bent over the little pad and  
began scribbling. “Look!” she said a minute later, turning the notebook for Reynir to see. She had drawn a rough sketch of grassy earth with several suns rising out of it.  
“Cool,” said Reynir.  
“Like I said: it’s a pretty idea.”  
“Hmm, yeah.”

And in the weeks that followed, when the sky was grey and snow fell like ash, dry and bone-white, Tuuri and Reynir drew the suns rising from the earth, and told each other stories that they invented on the spot.  
The suns were the children of gods, come to watch over humankind.  
They held a cure to the rash, and anyone who was hit by their light would heal instantly.  
They were good. They were evil.  
They were kind. They were cruel.  
They were whatever Tuuri and Reynir chose to make them. Emil grew confused, Lalli was oblivious, and Mikkel simply shook his head and muttered to himself whenever they were mentioned. Sigrun usually interjected with an unconnected comment about trolls.  
“Reynir!” said Tuuri as they ate soup. “The suns have the magical power to make anyone they shine upon full without having to eat things!”  
“Are you subtly insulting my cooking skills?” asked Mikkel.  
“Not at all! I would never! What are you talking about?”  
“It’s disgusting,” added Sigrun helpfully.  
And Tuuri laughed, and Reynir laughed, and even through the sky was grey and the food was disgusting and somewhere in the distance a troll screamed, they were happy.

_Auttakaa!_

The world closed over his head.  
There was darkness, there was hurt, and the suns stopped growing on grey days, which were every day.  
Even in his dreams there was anger and hatred and pain. 

He occupied his mind with Pastor A, and finding her helped. She was kind and noble, the light was orange and gold like the suns, Tuuri was lost but not broken, and the ghosts were free. He had learned to smile again; of course he had. The earth started sprouting suns again in his dreams, and in the distance, a bird was singing high, clear notes.  
He still missed Tuuri, but grief wasn’t eating him alive anymore. The suns were bright again with her memory and they didn’t burn to look at.

The second day back in Brúardalur, Mikkel found Reynir as he left the house. The older man held out a thin paper packet with a very faded image on the cover. It might have once been in pale yellows and greens. Reynir glanced at him, questioning, then looked down, squinting again at the packet. He couldn’t make out the writing. Anyway, it looked like it was in a language he didn’t recognize.  
“I would advise you to plant these,” said Mikkel.  
“Plant what?”  
“Open it.”  
Reynir fumbled with the seal. Inside the little envelope were several teardrop-shaped objects, striped white and brown. “Seeds,” he mumbled.  
Mikkel only smiled cryptically and turned to go back into the house.

So Reynir planted the seeds. He watered them, and the rain watered them, and they began to sprout bright green. They grew taller and taller against the sky. “What are they?” he asked Mikkel, but received no answer.  
Onni left, all memory of his anger in the dream world apparently forgotten. Reynir enrolled at the summer course for mages and was disappointed. His siblings left--all except one, who was distracted by a man with a horse--and his mother made worrying assumptions about his future. He met Lalli in the dreamspace to look for Onni, which was disappointing _and_ worrying, and then Lalli stopped speaking and he stopped eating and the next morning, Reynir woke with tears on his face. He didn’t feel sad, exactly, but he was undeniably anxious. He stumbled downstairs and heard worried voices.  
“Is Lalli gone?” he asked Mikkel.  
“It seems so.”  
Reynir cursed and ran out into the garden. How could things go so wrong? Hotakainens were always disappearing in the night like the sun. The sun.  
The _sun._  
He stopped dead at the edge of the plot of earth where he had planted the seeds and stared, letting the morning light dry his face.  
Several suns had sprouted out of the earth. The emerald stalks that had been growing all summer had unfolded their buds at last, and the petals of the flowers, which were large as dinner plates, shone golden-yellow as the first rays of dawn. _It was real. Tuuri, it was real._  
He reached, shaking, to touch a petal. Silk. A bird called once, although he wasn’t sure whether the sound came from the trees or from within his own mind.  
Reynir smiled slowly. There were people to find and troubles to fix, but there were flowers, too, and hope, and memories of a friend who had eyes full of starlight and the energy of a thousand suns.

**Author's Note:**

> I should probably edit this more, but I said I would write it about a month ago and I want it posted but I'm too tired right now to think about it anymore. Forgive me any grievous errors, and criticism is always always welcomed!!


End file.
